


brace and breathe

by Sorrel



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Family Feels, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Politics Are Hard, but at least she's got a computer in her head to offer color commentary, so is romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 10:40:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20152276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sorrel/pseuds/Sorrel
Summary: Sara remembers - not so very long ago, still - when there was no such thing as downtime in the cryo bay.  Like a kicked beehive, it was always humming with activity day and night, people rushing this way and that, the bashfully muffled hush of doctor's offices everywhere warring with the excited rumblings of people eager to get a start on a brand-new galaxy.  Even the news of how bad things had gone didn't seem to do much to suppress people's enthusiasm, which Sara always thought was sweet, if a little naive.  After all, a can-do attitude only takes you so far.  Right up until you run face-first into real life, in her experience.Or: Sara Ryder, before and after Kadara.





	brace and breathe

**Author's Note:**

> A long time ago, when I was actually in this fandom, I wrote [a post](https://sorrelchestnut.tumblr.com/post/160063242068/you-know-ive-been-thinking-about-it-and-i-think) on tumblr about how I thought Ryder and SAM's connection was way underutilized in the game, and ended up writing this as a result. This was originally supposed to be a sort of companion to [Shoot to Thrill](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10608699), but that's pretty definitively abandoned and this stands well enough on its own, so. It's less a story than two snapshots in time, but I'm still rather fond of it nonetheless so I figured it deserved to see the light of day.
> 
> Title comes from misquoted lyrics of "Dutch" by Dessa, which was always my Sara Ryder theme song.

Sara remembers - not so very long ago, still - when there was no such thing as downtime in the cryo bay. Like a kicked beehive, it was always humming with activity day and night, people rushing this way and that, the bashfully muffled hush of doctor's offices everywhere warring with the excited rumblings of people eager to get a start on a brand-new galaxy. Even the news of how bad things had gone didn't seem to do much to suppress people's enthusiasm, which Sara always thought was sweet, if a little naive. After all, a can-do attitude only takes you so far.

Right up until you run face-first into real life, in her experience.

"I don't think you can call it pessimism if life keeps living down to my expectations," she muses out loud. "I mean, at what point are we just going to give in and accept that Murphy's Law has us all over a fucking barrel?"

Her dining companion remains stubbornly silent.

"Yeah, I know." She sighs elaborately and slouches further down in her chair, crossing one foot over the other at the ankle. "I can't just _say_ things out loud where people might hear me. Hope to the galaxy, blah blah, inspiration, yadda, yadda. I know the drill."

She shoves another bite of ration bar into her mouth, chewing ostentatiously under the disapproving gaze of one of the night nurses. Last time she was in here, the staff kept trying to tell her that "outside food and beverages are strictly forbidden" and "visiting hours end at ten sharp" and "for god's sake, Ryder, get your damned feet off the bed," but it looks like Harry's had a talk with them since then, because they've been confining themselves to unhappy glares.

Hah. Lexi’d be the first one to tell you that _never_ works. Any hope of being cowed by medical professionals went out the window during Mom’s _first_ round of treatment.

“Aaaaanyway,” she mumbles, chewing hastily and swallowing. “Where were we?”

_You were on page two hundred and seventy-five, Pathfinder._

“Right.” She wiggles her toes in her shoes, getting comfortable, and looks down to her omni-tool, where SAM has already helpfully queued it back up. “Ah, right, here we go, I remember this now.” She clears her throat. “‘Chapter Seventeen: The Clouds Burst.’ Well, that sounds ominous.”

Scott, as always, makes no answer.

“‘Next day the trumpets rang early in the camp. Soon a single runner was seen hurrying along the narrow path. At a distance he stood and hailed them, asking whether Thorin would now listen to another embassy, since new tidings had come to hand, and matters were changed.’

‘“That will be Dain!” said Thorin when he heard. “They will have got wind of his coming. I thought that would alter their mood. Bid them come few in number and weaponless, and I will hear,” he called to the messenger.’

‘About midday the banners of the Forest and the Lake were seen to be borne forth again. A company of twenty was approaching. At the beginning of the narrow way they laid aside sword and spear…’”

She finishes the chapter in between bites of her dinner, keeping her voice to a low rumble, only barely audible over the steady, rhythmic _shush_ of the breathing machine. “‘Soon they too tuck up the cry, and it echoed across the valley. Many wondering eyes looked up, though as yet nothing could be seen except from the southern shoulders of the Mountain.’

‘“The Eagles!” cried Bilbo once more, but at that moment a stone hurtling from above smote heavily on his helm, and he fell with a crash and knew no more.' Wow, okay.” She closes the omni-tool with a flick of her fingers. “So that just happened.”

She considers reading another chapter, but from her fuzzy childhood memories, it’s not like the book gets any _less_ depressing from here, so. “You’ll just have to wait until next time,” she tells her brother. “Or I mean, don’t. Far be it for you to start listening to me at this late date.”

Her hips creak at her protestingly when she stands with a bone-popping stretch, but she ignores it in favor of looking around for a recyc bin. Failing to find one in easy reach, she gives up and crumples up the wrapper, shoving it in her pocket to dispose of later. _Knowing my luck, I’m going to forget again and then Suvi will have another ‘talk’ about waste management on a closed system. Goodie._

“Although I gotta warn you, if you don’t hurry up and stop napping the damn day away, I’m going to finish this book soon, and if you’re still in a coma I’m gonna start in on Lord of the Rings,” she threatens. “It’s like a thousand fucking pages. We’ll be here all goddamn year.”

The quiet beep of the heart monitor is her only answer.

“Yeah,” she sighs. “That’s what I thought.”

She bends over at the waist, ignoring the ache from her still-healing ribs, and presses a kiss to her brother’s forehead. “Sleep tight, Scotty,” she says, smoothing his renegade cowlick back down into some semblance of order. “Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

His face creases up momentarily, so exactly in the same way it always does when she’s waking him up that her heart turns over, half-expecting him to roll over and mumble for just five more minutes, Sar, c’mon. Her hands clench into her fists at her sides, too afraid to look over and confirm-

The EEG readout appears quietly in the corner of her vision. No change. Damn it.

_I would let you know immediately if there were any signs of revival, Pathfinder._ SAM's simulated tone is just shy of chiding.

“I know, buddy. Chalk it up to another irrational human thing. Hope’s a hell of a drug.”

She places two fingers against Scott’s jaw, right in the blank spot between one symbol and the next. “We never did get a chance to get this finished before shipping out,” she says. “We should take care of that when you wake up. You know how Dad feels about a task half-done.” She closes her eyes. “Felt. How he _felt_ about a task half-done.”

Damn it.

“Anyway,” she continues, forcing a note of cheer into her voice. “I asked Vetra and it looks like she knows a guy who printed out some gear on the sly, so when you’re up and around we can finish out the design. Hell, we can even bring Jaal along, turn it into a party. Apparently angarans don’t do tattoos, they have some kind of weird dye that takes like a year to wear off or something instead. He finds the whole thing _fascinating_.”

She takes a deep breath, lets it out. Shoves her hands into her pockets. “Right,” she mutters, abruptly furious - with herself, with Scott, with this whole goddamn situation. What the fuck is she even doing here? Harry keeps telling her that he can hear her, that her presence will be reassuring, but the one and only time she had a chance to talk to him she managed to scare him back into a coma, so how’s that for fucking reassuring?

God fucking _damn _it_._

“See you on the flipside, little brother,” she says, and makes tracks before she can do something really embarrassing, like kick the wall, or possibly cry.

The tram is blessedly empty when she gets there, so she keys in the habitation deck and drops into one of the empty seats, heavy like a puppet with cut strings. A peaceful sort of humming fills her bones, at just the right time that she _could_ blame it on faulty calibration in the tram line, if she wanted to.

The tap of her fingers against the seat is _thank you,_ and after all these weeks inside her head, SAM knows well enough not to say _you're welcome._

Sara lets her head loll back against the headrest and closes her eyes. Now all she has to do is file the flight plan with Kallo, and inform the crew that they're headed to Kadara.

###### 

**THREE MONTHS LATER**

###### 

Time has inured her to the worst of Tann’s… quirks, but Sara still goes into every meeting with him tensed for battle, and comes out of them feeling direly in need of a shower. In the spirit of (ugh) fairness, he’d probably be more willing to work with her if she didn’t keep making decisions that he didn’t approve of. Unfortunately for him, Tann’s approval isn’t exactly on the list of things that keep her up at night.

He keeps typing when she comes in and sits on the other side of his desk, a move that she finds both pointless and annoying. He doesn’t have enough authority to leave her frightened of his anger, and these petty little power plays only chip away at what respect he has managed to earn. She only slouches down in the overstuffed chair and folds her hands across her stomach, closing her eyes. Maybe if Tann stretches this out long enough, she can actually doze off and get five goddamn minutes of rest for a change.

_I’m not entirely sure what the Director is attempting to accomplish,_ SAM murmurs. _Is this display meant to impress?_

Sara stifles a laugh. _He certainly thinks it is._

_That seems ill-advised._

_To be fair, I think it’d work on him if the situations are reversed. Chalk this one up to a failure of imagination._ She smiles, knowing that Tann will see it out of the corner of his eye and be infuriated. _I mean, Dad trying to figure out what to say at the dinner table was way more awkward than this._

Tann clears his throat before SAM can respond. She pries her eyes open, cursing the strained, gritty feeling left behind, and looks up with a politely expectant expression. “Yes, Director?”

He blinks back at her, silently conceding that round. His folded hands on his desk mark the beginning of the next, and she braces herself. They’ve already gone round and round about the krogan scouts vs. Raeka debacle, which means that the only thing left is-

“Addison has informed me that you authorized deployment of a colony block to Kadara.”

_Yep, there it is._ “I have, yes,” she says, refusing to give in to the urge to straighten in her chair. It would only be conceding ground, and knowing that her relaxed pose is almost certainly making him grind his teeth with frustration is half of what’s getting her through this clusterfuck. “I assume you have objections.”

_No fucking kidding I have objections,_ Tann’s blank expression says. Or would say, if he lowered himself to the use of such uncouth language. A direct quote from the joyless hell of Security Briefing number 16, back when she was still hunting kett on Voeld. Good times.

“Have we not had enough conflict with these... exiles?” (He always says “exiles” as if he would like to use a much cruder word, but is too refined to let it cross his lips.) “Placing an outpost so close to their territory is only asking to get attacked, or robbed, or… worse.”

She’d ask what ‘worse’ he’s imagining, but to be fair, there was that one gang that was fucking _eating_ people, so. She'll give him that one.

“Well, first of all, it’s a good fifty miles outside of the city walls, with expansion zones pointed away from the city, so I think there’s plenty of room for everyone. Second, an outpost on Kadara would actually have _greater_ security than we’re currently experiencing on Eos or Voeld, thanks to the lack of kett.” She smiles tightly. “The ‘exiles’ saw to that.”

“And what guarantee do we have that they will not attempt to see to us in the same manner?”

_Common fucking sense?_ “We have the assurances of the governing authority of Kadara Port that settlement efforts will be welcomed,” she says, deliberately relaxing so as not to say it through gritted teeth. “Trade to and from a production center like an outpost would only benefit their citizens, and the leadership recognizes that.”

“Their new leadership.”

She doesn’t need SAM’s murmured, _Careful, Pathfinder,_ to know a fucking trap when it’s yawning open in front of her. “I would say it’s more like old leadership, back for round two.”

“Ah, yes. The angara, Keema Dorghun.” Tann folds his hands. “I have it on good authority that she rules at the behest of this mysterious Charlatan.”

Even braced she still feels it like a blow, a now-familiar ache under her breastbone. “Or,” she says lightly, “Keema made up the entire thing to deflect attention away from her own rise to power.”

“So you claim that Mayor Dorghun is, in fact, the head of the Collective?”

_Boy,_ does she not want to be having this conversation. “As far as anyone knows, yes,” she says steadily. “And even if she isn’t, then the Charlatan, whoever they are, is equally committed to peace. The offer wouldn’t have been made otherwise.”

Tann regards her for a long, silent moment. “‘As far as anyone knows,’” he quote softly. “You’ve become very involved in Kadara’s politics in your quest to establish an outpost there. Are you absolutely certain that their identity was never revealed to you?”

_He knows,_ she thinks, suddenly, fatalistically - but that’s not possible. Only Drack and Vetra knew that Sloane asked for her assistance in the meeting with the Charlatan, and even they don’t know what happened in that cave. She ordered them to stay in the Nomad for the meeting itself, and both of them were too smart to ask, after it was over. _Or_ to enter the encounter in the daily log. As far as the formal report goes, Sara woke up, went on a final scouting expedition into the Badlands to determine a likely settlement location, and then recalled the _Tempest_ for an in-the-field pickup on the way off-planet. The message from Reyes the next day came in on an encrypted channel, direct through SAM, and even Tann doesn’t have anyone who can crack that. Keema’s formal invitation, received two days later through official channels, contained nothing untoward.

But he knows, somehow. She can tell. Or maybe just suspects. She knows Nexus has agents among the exiles, after all; her meeting with Sloane that morning was off-books, but a determined snoop could have been in the right place at the right time. It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out that Sloane meeting with the human Pathfinder and then being gunned down three hours later wasn’t entirely a coincidence. The fact that ultimately, Sara hadn’t done anything but than stand there probably wouldn’t count for much in a formal inquiry. If there was anyone that _could_ perform a formal inquiry, now.

“I’m certain,” she says, and even as she says it she can feel SAM’s presence sliding through her veins, artificially slowing her pulse and steadying her nervous system, wordlessly suppressing any signs of deceit from the biofeedback sensors Tann has almost certainly wired up in his office. “But I’m equally certain that if there is such a person, they will see to it that their people cooperate fully with Initiative colonization efforts.”

“I see,” Tann says. His face is absolutely still, impossible to read. “Very well. Addison has already approved the deployment of the colony block, so I won’t step in. But I will be keeping a very close eye on any developments in that sector, Pathfinder. I can assure you of that.”

_I just bet you will._ “Is there anything else, Director?”

“No,” he says, and goes back to his typing. “Dismissed, Pathfinder.”

_Prick._ “Until next time.”

She climbs out of the overstuffed chair, her joints protesting the movement when she’d only just started to get comfortable, and is halfway across the floor when Tann’s voice calls her to a halt. “Ryder.”

She turns, crosses her arms over her chest, knows even as she does it that it looks defensive and not caring. “Tann.”

His huge black eyes are unsettlingly still, fixed on her face. “Off the record?”

_Danger, danger, Will Robinson!_ “Sure.”

“If I am ever again given reason to believe that you’ve gone behind my back as you did in this matter, I will have you removed as Pathfinder.”

Only SAM’s assistance keeps her breath even, her pulse steady. “I’m sure you will, Director.”

“I’m glad we understand each other.” He nods shortly. “Until later, Pathfinder.”

“Of course, Director.”

###### 

In the _Hyperion_ tram her fingers hover over the cryodeck button for endless moment, before she finds herself keying in habitation instead.

SAM says nothing as she strides through the halls, exchanging friendly smiles and nods with the crew who recognize her, which is most of them. _You could try dyeing your hair back to black,_ she thinks ruefully, as yet another engineer perks up and waves as she passes by. _It’d make you a little less immediately noticeable, at least._

She doesn’t look at the door to her father’s quarters at the end of the hall, just presses her palm to the sensor for SAM node and closes her eyes against the familiar wash of cool, pleasantly neutral air. The blue roil of SAM’s holographic representation blinks at her in greeting, closing the doors behind her without any input from her as she crosses to the end of the catwalk and collapses into a slump at the foot of the interface node.

_Director Tann doesn’t know about the depth of our connection,_ SAM murmurs. There's a speaker about six inches over her head, but they're long past bothering with the pretense. _He would not have issued that ultimatum if he knew that a disconnect would result in your death._

She closes her eyes and leans her head back against the pedestal. _I wouldn’t be so sure of that._

_Are you troubled by the threat, or by concealing Reyes’ identity as the Charlatan?_

"Not pulling any punches tonight, are we?" She sighs and waves her hand limply before he can answer. _I dunno. Both, I guess._ She presses a hand to her chest, the same spot that’s been aching for the past two weeks now. _Probably mostly the former. I don’t owe Tann shit._

SAM gives the little subvocal hum that she’s learned to associate with laughter. _I doubt he sees it that way._

_Yeah, well, he can go take a long walk off a short pier._

_I doubt that would prove overly impactful. Salarians are, after all, an aquatic species._

It takes a minute to register, and then her eyes snap open. “SAM. Was that a joke?”

_I don’t know. Was it amusing?_

“Yeah,” she says, laughing a little helplessly. “Yeah, I guess it kinda was.”

_Then I suppose it was a joke._ SAM sounds pleased with himself. _I believe you would say it was my first._

“Your first _funny_ one, yeah.” She raises her fist and shakes it triumphantly at the ceiling. “Suck it, Dad! That’s _two_ younger siblings I’ve managed to corrupt now. Sara two, Alec _zero._”

_ I doubt he would view it as ‘corruption.’ He often lamented my lack of humor as a failing of his programming abilities._

"No, Dad just wasn’t very funny." She stretches her legs out in front of her, trying to force her muscles to unwind. It’s harder than it should be. Lexi’s going to get on her about the yoga again, she just knows it. _On the other hand, I’m pretty sure he never got bamboozled by a fucking crime lord, so… One up for him, I guess._

SAM makes a sort of neutrally sympathetic noise. _Do you regret your decision not to save Sloane Kelly from Mr. Vidal’s sniper?_

"Million-dollar question, isn't it?" She blows a sigh out through pursed lips. _No. Sloane was bad for Kadara, and she was bad for the Initiative. She would always have been a time bomb on our borders, just waiting to go off. And with the Collective in charge, we look better to the angara, too. We need all the goodwill there we can get._

_For what it’s worth, I agree with your assessment._

"Well, that’s comforting." Sort of. "Doesn’t make it any easier to figure out what to do _now_, though."

_You once stated that you, like the angara, prefer to judge people on their actions, rather than their words. Is there anything in Mr. Vidal’s actions that truly contradicts the man you presumed him to be?_

She gives the question the weight of consideration it deserves, drumming her fingers on her thigh and staring sightlessly into the middle distance. What _was_ the kind of man she’d presumed him to be? It’s not as if she thought he was a goddamn Boy Scout. She knew he was a smuggler within thirty seconds of their first meeting, and she’s dealt with enough pirates in her day to know it isn’t exactly the line of work for fine, upstanding young gentlemen. She’d known him for a liar, a thief, and almost certainly a killer, and she hadn’t balked at any of that. How could she, when he was smiling at her like that?

Still, a petty criminal, however accomplished, is a long way from a goddamn gang leader. Especially the kind of smart, motivated, _ruthless_ gang leader that was able to orchestrate the takeover of an entire settlement, right under Sloane’s nose. And _especially_ the kind of gang leader clever enough to insinuate himself into the Pathfinder’s good graces, to use her like a dowsing rod to find Sloane’s weak spots so he could pry them open and weasel through the cracks.

_But you knew that already,_ she reminds herself. She’s always known Reyes wasn’t exactly helping her out of the goodness of his heart. He’s always had ulterior motives. She just figured it was about money, some complicated scheme or other, a con with a lot of moving parts. And she hadn’t cared about that either, because if his scheme had a payoff she’d never see, at least he was still finding a way to help people while he was at it. That’s more than most people ever do.

_What I want is peace,_ he’d said, in the cave. And before: _you know who I really am,_ his heart in his eyes, like he had any goddamn right. She’d wanted to punch him for it, then. She still kind of does.

But there’s also that ache in her chest, the one she can’t blame on SAM and his creative approach to problem-solving. She’s been feeling it since before she ever set foot on the Archon’s ship - for thirteen days and counting, now, ever since she walked out of that cave feeling like she’d left half her skin behind.

_God-fucking-damn it._

“There’s just so much at stake,” she tells SAM, hearing the strain in her voice and knowing that SAM, at least, won’t judge her for it. “I mean, I gave Dad shit with the best of them, but he was arguably one of the finest tactical minds of his generation. He didn’t get this far without looking before he leapt.”

_If I might offer an observation?_

“Always.”

_Despite your complicated relationship with your father’s legacy, you pride yourself on striving to meet the standards that he has set. But I believe you would also acknowledge that Alec was somewhat lacking in emotional competency._

She snorts a laugh, almost in spite of herself. “Well, that’s a fucking understatement.”

_ Indeed. I also believe that if you were to ask your comrades, they would say that your own mastery in this area not only far exceeds your father’s, but is in fact the foundation of the successes that you have forged out of the adversity found here in the Heleus cluster._

“SAM,” she says, keeping her voice steady like he doesn’t already know the exact chemical composition of the tears that prick at the corner of her eyelids, “are you telling me to trust my instincts?”

There’s a long pause - longer than she’s ever heard from SAM, who processes his decisions in microseconds unfathomable to human comprehension, and only delays long enough to be polite to the poor organics who can’t keep up with him. _I suppose I am,_ he says finally. _Perhaps that is insufficient guidance._

_No, it helps._ She strokes her fingers affectionately along the rough grating of the floor panel, knowing he can’t feel it any more than anything else, but knowing, too, that he’ll appreciate the gesture as it was intended. _It helps a whole fucking lot, actually._

SAM says nothing, but she feels his hum of approval shiver through her bones, a hidden touch, just between the two of them. She smiles up at the ceiling, feeling immeasurably better, even as exhaustion weighs heavy on her limbs. She needs to take a break.

Later. There’s always later.

_Hey, is Sleeping Beauty up for the day yet, can you tell?_

_Your brother is finishing his daily exercises with Dr. Carlyle._ SAM’s tone changes ever-so-slightly, almost sly. _I believe his mood could best be described as ‘foul.’_

"Awesome." She hauls herself to her feet. "Sounds like the perfect time for me to go cheer him up, huh?"

_A challenging task indeed._

"Well. No one ever said I like things easy, did they?"


End file.
